The human fossil record of Bulgaria and the formulation of biogeographic hypotheses

Abstract

The location of Bulgaria on the Balkan Peninsula makes it potentially important for evaluating biogeographic hypotheses related to human evolution. The country lies at the crossroads of Europe and Asia Minor and constitutes a key portion of one of the possible dispersal pathways that hominin populations would have employed as they entered and left Europe during the Pleistocene. Unfortunately, the Pleistocene human fossil record of Bulgaria is sparse, and perhaps more importantly, the specific biogeographic hypotheses that human fossil discoveries might address could be more fully articulated. In this chapter, we review the fossil hominins currently known from Bulgaria and discuss the framing of biogeographic hypotheses.